The Gift to Stalin
This emotionally uplifting film in the tradition of
Kolya and
Cinema Paradiso is set in rural Kazakhstan in 1949, an area larger than Western Europe, and then a Soviet domain of enforced exiles and labour camps.
It tells the story a young Jewish boy, Sashka, who is caught up in one of Stalin's many deportations from Moscow. Found alive in a railroad car full of dead bodies, he is rescued by a gruff Muslim railroad worker, Kasym.
Adopted by Kasym's clan, the boy quickly adapts to his hosts' new customs, as well as the unfamiliar pastoral landscape. But with hopes of reuniting with his birth family fading, Sashka participates in a Soviet-wide competition celebrating Stalin's 70th birthday to win his parents' freedom.
Narrated by Sashka, the film shifts from past to present, and from the stunning steppes of Kazakhstan to the old city of Jerusalem.
